Epic FAIL, Halloween Edition

I’ve heard people refer to the trend of woman wearing revealing Halloween costumes as “Slutoween.” I don’t particularly like this term, because I don’t like slut-shaming of any kind. However, both Victoria’s Secret, and Frederick’s of Hollywood seem to be promoting Racially-Insensitive O’Ween, which just plain fucked up.

On The VS website, you can purchase a variety of costumes under the “Sexy Little Fantasies” brand. These include Sexy Bride, Sexy Nurse, Sexy Flight Attendant, and Sexy Senorita:

Because being a stereotypical Latin American is an occupation, too. And it’s perfectly acceptable to co-opt and fetishize a growing population demographics clothing and culture.

One of VS’s rivals, Frederick’s of Hollywood, is guilty of this practice as well.

This “Three-Piece Shanghai Girl” getup is what would happen if someone took the 2 Live Crew song “Me So Horny,” and made it into a costume.

Frederick’s didn’t have an Asian model this outfit, and VS didn’t have a Latina model theirs. Frankly, this wouldn’t make these costumes any less racist, since they rely on fetishism and inaccurate stereotypes about Latin American and Asian women.

I’m also confused as to why VS and Frederick’s think that insulting and alienating their customer base is a good idea. Both companies rely on young woman for their business, and judging by the traffic these businesses get during any given weekend, their customer base is far from being exclusively white.

While I continue to work on my Sexy Pissed-Off Readhead costume, you can contact Fredricks and Victoria’s Secret and let them know what you think about these ridiculous and racist costumes.

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§ 9 Responses to Epic FAIL, Halloween Edition

Yeah, I wanted to be a mummy this year but the only crap I could find was “sexy Alice in Wonderland”, “sexy witch”, “sexy schoolgirl”, “sexy vampire”, “sexy scientist woman”, “sexy bumblebee”, etcetera. I’m going to end up wearing the kids’ Papa Smurf costume instead, I think.

@Nova, there’s a mummy costume for about $20 at walmart that is pretty decent. I mean, it’s a dress, and the model has it done up all “sexy,” I guess, but it’s not a miniskirt for once and it’s actually quite a good quality costume for a walmart product.

Also, Fashion Bug has a large line of costumes for women. Some of them are the “sexy” kind, but they have some really good-quality, nice costumes as well. They especially get my vote for carrying all their costumes (including the super-short and low-cut ones) in Plus sizes.

The main problem is that we live in a culture where all this is acceptable, and encouraged at an early age. From infancy, most modern girls are taught that beauty and looking sexy is important (Hence Bratz and bikinis for 6-month olds) and that it’s okay to be culturally insensitive. This is just a byproduct of it.

I’ve heard people refer to the trend of woman wearing revealing Halloween costumes as “Slutoween.” I don’t particularly like this term, because I don’t like slut-shaming of any kind. However, both Victoria’s Secret, and Frederick’s of Hollywood seem to be promoting Racially-Insensitive O’Ween, which just plain fucked up.